By Aaron the Humanist
In this article, Aaron asks whether there is a humanist view on where to draw the line in terms of ‘age appropriate content’ in sex education.
A new sex education book for children by Dr Melissa Kang and Yumi Stynes – Welcome to Sex! Your No-Silly-Questions Guide – has been causing a bit of a stir on social media. In the customer reviews section on Amazon, ‘Barbara L’ describes it as ‘absolutely vile’ and ‘Tasha’ calls it ‘sickening’, whereas ‘Miss J K Kjerre’ writes ‘It's a really good book. It answers any questions a tween/teenager might have and is really easy to access’.
This got me thinking – where would humanists draw the line on this kind of material? What do we humanists think about sex, and should all varieties of sex be discussed with ten-year-olds – the youngest target audience for this book?
What do children need to know?
As children grow and develop they will, inevitably, become aware of sex and the variety of human relationships and family types. Some children nowadays will have two daddies or two mummies, and this reality needs to be acknowledged in a matter-of-fact and non-judgemental manner in early primary school. Some children will come from religious families which disagree with same-sex marriage. This fact can be acknowledged as well. Children should not be forced to adopt beliefs which go against their home environment but they should be taught to accept and respect others in the school community.
Some level of sex education needs to be included in the school curriculum before puberty so that there are no surprises. Personally speaking, I would say this should be on a factual and need-to-know basis. The biology of how babies are made and the very basics of what happens physically seems appropriate. I think this happened with me at around age 10 or 11. I have no idea at what stage this is covered now. I remember being repulsed by the topic and feeling very uncomfortable watching the video. Very few of us ventured to ask questions afterwards. Was this information introduced too early? Or too early for us back then? Children do grow up faster now with more information available from every avenue than back in the mid 1980s.
But Welcome to Sex! seems to go to the opposite extreme. It looks like an explicit Kama Sutra for kids, as this image illustrates. Why on earth do ten-year-olds need to know about ‘scissoring’ and ‘rimming’? It also refers in hyper-woke fashion to ‘penis-owners’.
At what stage should we enter the realms this book is covering, if at all? Should we teach children all they need to know about sexual pleasures with other people and then tell them they can’t do these things for at least another six years? Isn’t that like placing a cake on the table and being told you can’t eat it? I guess the logical age would be 15 to 16 years, but statistics show that people are engaging in sexual exploration at younger ages, and by 15 to 16 years it could be too late. As far back as 2005, the Guardian reported that more than one fifth of girls in the UK had had sex by the age of 14.
It seems to me that we need a graduated approach, rather than throwing too much information at ten-year-olds. In order to safeguard young people, questions around consent, peer pressure, touching and appropriate behaviour need to be covered so that they know what to do if they find themselves in a difficult situation. Where is the best place for this type of education? In school or at home?
If you were categorising Welcome to Sex! what age would you put on it?
Further information
The UK has official guidelines on sex education in schools. These guidelines are set by the Department for Education and provide a framework for how relationships and sex education (RSE) should be delivered in primary and secondary schools in England. Similar guidelines exist for Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland, though they may vary slightly.
The PSHE Association also publishes guidance on relationships and sex education. PSHE stands for Personal, social, health and economic.
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